Bird Flu: A senior French infectious disease specialist has warned that the bird flu virus currently circulating in wild birds, poultry, and some mammals could, in a worst-case scenario, trigger a pandemic more severe than COVID-19 if it adapts to spread easily between people.
The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, commonly known as bird flu, has already led to the culling of hundreds of millions of birds worldwide in recent years, disrupting poultry supplies and driving up food prices. Human infections remain rare so far, but scientists are closely monitoring changes in the virus.
Also Read | Washington resident dies from rare H5N5 bird flu, first human case of this strain
“What we fear is the virus adapting to mammals, and particularly to humans, becoming capable of human-to-human transmission, and that virus would be a pandemic virus,” said Marie-Anne Rameix-Welti, medical director at the respiratory infections centre of the Institut Pasteur in Paris, in an interview.
She noted that while people typically have some immunity to common seasonal flu strains such as H1 and H3, there is virtually no pre-existing antibody protection against the H5 bird flu viruses now affecting birds and some mammals. The situation is similar to the early days of COVID-19, when the population had no prior immunity to the new coronavirus.
Rameix-Welti added that, unlike COVID-19, which has had its most severe impact on older adults and those with underlying conditions, influenza viruses are also capable of causing severe disease and death in otherwise healthy individuals, including children. “A bird flu pandemic would probably be quite severe, potentially even more severe than the pandemic we experienced,” she said.
The World Health Organization has recorded nearly 1,000 human infections with H5 bird flu viruses between 2003 and 2025, mainly in countries such as Egypt, Indonesia and Vietnam, with about 48% of reported patients dying from their infections. Most cases so far have been linked to close contact with infected animals. The United States recently reported its first known human case of H5N5 in Washington state; the patient, who had underlying health problems, later died.
Despite these concerns, international health agencies stress that the risk of a human pandemic from bird flu remains low at present. Gregorio Torres, head of the Science Department at the World Organisation for Animal Health, said there is no need for alarm in daily life, but underlined the importance of early preparedness. “The pandemic risk is a possibility. But in terms of probability, it’s still very low,” he said.
